By Niki Bakouli
From 1995, Real Madrid is the most crowned team in Euroleague’s history. And that happened when they got their 8th cup, at Zaragoza. And no matter what will happen this year (even if Panathinaikos manages to… stay where he has been since last year), Real Madrid will still be No1, at this particular list. But they will not have the chance to claim one more European trophy, their first one in this millennium. Let’s see why
First of all, Real Madrid is different from many other clubs because it is also a football club. It makes more money than others because of that, but often does not receive the necessary attention by the president and the rest of the board. After the departure of Messina, the club discussed the situation. It was decided to sign Pablo Laso, a cheap coach, and go for a nice offensive game, with as many points per game as it gets. It is true that the budget has been cut down, but the money spent on the roster is similar. Madrid saved money both after Messina was changed by Laso (2 millions of euros) and because it didn’t paid anything for transfers fees to other teams.
The club knows that the base of the roster is good. Jaycee Carroll is a hit. There is future too with Mirotic and Llull. The club decided to spend a lot of money only for signing real stars, with players such as Rudy Fernandez. The budget has been reduced from about 28 million euros to less than 25 (approximate figures), but meanwhile the income grew: 10-11 million euros this season. The basketball club is the most lucrative in Spain, but lost almost 15 million are paid by the football. The talent and the youth of its players is among its strengths, and the playing style of Laso is very offensive and attractive. As a result Real Madrid won the Cup after 19 years. Apart from this achievement, Palace of Sports is another hit (Final Four 2008, Eurobasket 2007 ….). It averages 9.000 spectators per game.
The issue is not that Madrid has less money. Money is similar to the last season even with Rudy in the team. The difference is that during previous years the club paid to terminate the contracts of Hansen, Lavrinovic, Garbajosa, Bullock, Hervelle, Papadopoulos, Marko Tomas … and many others. Now, this phenomenon is not happening. Furthermore, in old times the club paid high amounts on marquee transfers, like Prigioni’s (more than two million euros). This season has only been paid for Pocius (about 400,000 euros) and Singler (150,000 euros).
Pablo Laso was a small playmaker but very talented in passing the ball. He is consindered the best assistant coach in the league’s history. The most important years of his career were spent in Tau Vitoria, but he played for Madrid and won the Cup Winners Cup in 1997 along Alberto Herreros, who is the manager of the team today. This season, Laso’s big bet was to use Sergio Llull as a play maker instead of combo-guard.
As far as the crowd is concerned, Martin, Petrovic and Sabonis played in the “Palacio de Deportes”, the stadium where the fans wanted the team to return to. And Real did return. Its previous gim the “Magic Box” is very good for tennis, but unsuitable for basketball. The “Palacio” has a capacity of 13,000 spectators while the Magic Box only of 12,000, and before that the team was playing in Vistalegre (13,900). The big advantage of the “Palacio” is that it is in downtown Madrid and that makes it easily accessible. The press, the fans and the club wanted to go there. They could share the court with Estudiantes and as a plus, its use is free of charge, because the “Palacio” belongs to the regional government. Real Madrid paid to “Magic Box”`s owners 1.1 million euros per season.
Because of all this factors, their disqualification from this year’s play offs of Euroleague didn’t really hurt anybody. In Madrid people think that CSKA is in a superior position and that Real is in the level of Barca, Siena, Panathinaikos and Maccabi. The problem in the Top-16 was that the team had some really bad results for two weeks and was eliminated. But ever since they have lost by 24 points in Bilbao in the first week of February, they have won every game. They won the Cup as well, and Siena in Italy by 102-90. I’m sure that if they played Top-16 now, Madrid would have been first in the group… or at least second, but never third.